


Five Life-Debts

by bomberqueen17



Category: Centurion (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Crossover, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a crossover between the two movies, but a fusion of the two-- both characters played by Michael Fassbender have been blended into one, and the random witchy chick from Centurion has been replaced by a young Pictish man who goes by the Roman name of Carolus. Both characters still have powers, but much diminished from canon. <br/>Weirdly, it makes the movie make a lot more sense if you redo it this way.</p>
<p>This is just the end of the movie and a bit after. </p>
<p>No knowledge of the movie is particularly required-- Quintus gives Carolus a summary of what has transpired anyway. Suffice to say, it's Roman Britain, a bit north of Hadrian's Wall, after the destruction of the IX Hispania Legion. </p>
<p>I wrote this mostly to get it out of my head, but thought someone else might want to read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Life-Debts

 

Carolus crouched beside the stream, washing his hands and concentrating on the water. As it flowed, so could his attention; focusing on it helped him go outside himself, helped him try to extend his range. The last run-in with Etain and her band had taught him that he needed to work on hearing at a greater distance. One of these days, the superstition against killing him wouldn’t be enough, and he’d need to hear his death coming if he wanted to avoid it. 

If he wanted to.

Damn it. It was stupid, but having been almost close to another human even for a day and a night had been enough to throw the pain of his isolation into sharp relief. He was going slowly mad out here, with no other minds to hear, with no one to talk to conventionally or with his uncanny abilities, and that was going to kill him someday. He knew that. 

_Focus,_ he thought ruthlessly. If he let them kill him, he wanted it to be because he’d decided to, not because he was taken by surprise. He let his thoughts move with the water, and listened. There was a living mind in the forest— or was it? All he could feel was its pain, its weakness, its deep weariness, a feverish and hallucinatory quality to its thoughts lending it an unreal aspect. 

It might not be real, Carolus reflected, regarding it with some confusion. It could be a ghost. Horrified at this thought, Carolus stared sightlessly at the river water. It was— whatever it was, it was in an awful lot of pain. He hesitated, then pushed out a wordless question at it. 

It quivered in response, then reached out tentatively— alive, yes, so much pain— and it pressed against him, desperate— _you— it’s_ you _— will you help me again— I have nothing_ — so much pain. Carolus blinked and grimaced. _Yes_ , he thought back, then had to pull away, the pain was so bad. 

He recentered himself, then sat back and pushed himself up, turning away from the stream— and heard hoofbeats. A horse, moving at a slow pace. He turned, and there was a tall thin figure on a horse, a big black horse— dark red tunic— gods, it was Quintus, and as Carolus stood, wide-eyed in shock, the horse stopped, and Quintus— 

Quintus slid sideways off the horse, limp, and hit the ground. 

“No,” Carolus said— the pain, that was Quintus, weakness near to death, high fever, he barely knew who he was, barely knew his own name. Quintus rolled weakly onto his back, sprawled, and his eyelids fluttered open as Carolus dropped to his knees beside him.

“My life is again in your hands, witch,” Quintus breathed, managing to quirk his mouth into a half-smile, eyelids fluttering closed. His face was dead white, hair wet with snow and sweat, skin clammy under Carolus’s fingers. 

Before he could think better of it, Carolus bent and put his mouth on Quintus’s. Quintus pressed his lips against Carolus’s, then slid into unconsciousness. He was clammy, gripped by a fever that had nearly burned him out, and it took Carolus only a moment to find the cause— a bandage, ripped from his tunic hem, circled his left leg, completely soaked through with blood. Blood had even dripped down the horse’s side— the horse stood some distance away, watching warily, unnerved by his rider’s uncontrolled descent and Carolus’s rapid response. 

“You know I’ll save you, Roman,” Carolus said, but Quintus’s eyelashes didn’t even flutter in response. Carolus gritted his teeth and set about the work of getting the rangy Roman into his house. 

 

I dreamed, for a long time, of heat and cold, of the sun and the trees, of snow and the scent of herbs. I dreamed of my mother, the warmth and softness of her breast, her soft arms and strong hands and the sweet depths of her voice. There was pain, but it was at a great distance, and I sank away from it, unconcerned by it.

I woke a couple of times, groggy and terrified, certain I was being hunted, and tried desperately to get up, to get the others up, to keep running, but I couldn’t stay awake long enough to make it. One time I was strong enough to struggle up out of the blanket tangling around me and out of the— cave mouth? door? But I collapsed then, and there were hands on me and I tried to fight but was too weak to move. 

I remembered, then, just for a moment, that his name was Carolus, and my panic eased enough that I slid back into unconsciousness and knew no more for a long time. 

 

My eyes had been open a little while before I registered that they were open, that I was awake. There was a roof over my head, the underside of a crude thatched roof, upon which firelight was dancing distantly. There was a quiet sound nearby, repetitive, familiar— the susurration of a drop spindle at work, the roving threading between fingers, the soft hum as it spun, the occasional thunk as it reached the floor and had to be wound up onto the finished ball, then spun and restarted. 

It smelled of herbs, some clean and some strong, spicy. Medicinal. I was clothed, but not in my own clothes— in a coarsely-woven linen shirt soft with washing, long-sleeved, like nothing I had ever worn. I watched the firelight, listened to the hum-swish of the spindle, until one of the times it dropped, it did not resume. There were soft noises as the spinner wound the thread up onto the ball, then a soft clack as she put it down on some hard surface and stood, moving across the wooden floor to tend the fire, stirring something with a scrape of wood on metal. 

She sighed, and I found the strength to roll my head enough to see her. The firelight glinted red in tumbled dark hair, spilled softly across cream-pale skin. I remembered him suddenly. Not a woman at all, but Carolus, mysterious and wild and— and I’d heard him, in the woods, before I could see him, before I was close enough. It hadn’t really been hearing. Feeling. He’d been there, somehow, calling to me, promising to help me, before he was within range of seeing or hearing. 

But speaking was beyond me, so I just watched him move, admired his slender strength like a young tree. 

He poured liquid into a cup, turned, and came toward me. I watched his approach, blinking slowly, and he sat on the stool beside the bed, frowning at me. He put his hand against my forehead, testing my temperature as I remembered my mother doing when I was a child, then put the back of his hand against my cheek, and frowned deeper. He bent, then, and pressed his cheek against mine, and I sighed and turned my mouth toward his. 

“I’m not dead,” I murmured, and he pressed his lips to mine for a moment. It had been, perhaps, not foolhardy of me to return here— I had not misunderstood his behavior to me, had not assumed too much. Or, if I had, at least I had been right that he wouldn’t let me die. 

“You’re not,” he agreed, but pulled away to give me a calculating once-over look. “But do you know who you are, or where you are, or who I am, or why you’re here?”

“No,” I answered, “but given time, I could puzzle it out. You’re Carolus, I’m Quintus, this is your house, and I’m a fugitive again but I know that no one will come for me now.”

“I have been half-mad with terror,” he said, “that Etain would come back here, but I thought you must have done something to assure she wouldn’t, or you would never have come back.”

“I killed her,” I said. 

He sat back then, with a long sigh of profound relief. “You killed her,” he said. “How?”

“A knife,” I said. “Through her side. I got the liver. Among other things. I did make sure she was dead.”

“What of your men?” he asked, cringing a little, knowing the answer. I closed my eyes, and shook my head slowly. He put his hand on my cheek again. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. 

I peeled my eyes back open. “Have you aught to drink?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he said. “Let me help you sit up.” He stood, putting the cup down on the stool, and with practiced ease slid into the bed behind me and pulled me up by the shoulders, so I rested back against his chest. I had no conscious memory of this but it was familiar, and I knew he must have done this while I was delirious. He picked up the cup and held it for me. I tried to hold it as well, but my hands shook, so he did most of the work of holding it. 

It tasted strongly herbal, and I winced and shuddered a bit as I tried to get it down. “You ought to drink as much of it as you can stomach,” he said. “It is a restorative. I had thought your fever would break soon, so I steeped this. It is a little bitter because it steeped overlong; I thought your fever would break hours ago.”

Obedient, I drained the cup, though he was right, it was powerfully bitter. Anyone else I would have assumed was poisoning me. He stroked my hair absently, and I thought how long it was since anyone had touched me in that manner, comforting and affectionate. “If Etain is dead, then from whom are you a fugitive?” he asked, taking the empty cup and retrieving a pot of water from under the bed to refill it. 

“Rome,” I said. 

“Rome,” he answered blankly.

I took the cup of water and drank greedily from it, swishing the bitter herbs from my mouth. My hands were a little steadier now. “Rome,” I confirmed. 

“I see there is a story,” he said, and to my regret he slid out from behind me and out of the bed. 

“Yes,” I said. 

“Well,” he said, “since you’re awake, I’d better try to get some solid food in you and get you a bit stronger. The story can wait, if there is no one hunting you and I do not have to hide you.”

“No,” I said, “no one is hunting me. I tried to tell you that right away but I don’t think the words made it out.”

“Almost none did,” he said. “You had me quite scared.”

“How long was I out?” I asked. 

“It’s been five days,” he said. “And I couldn’t believe you— you were absolutely covered with bruises, with cuts, with filth, scrapes, blisters— you had no skin, only wounds.”

“I’ve had a bad couple of weeks,” I said. “Wait, five days?” I was incredulous. “I had a fever for five days?”

“I was sure you were dead every time you fell asleep,” he said, and around then was when I caught on that the shadows under his eyes weren’t just shadows, they were the dark circles of exhaustion and old fear. 

I gazed up at him, contrite. “I am sorry, friend,” I said, “I would not have caused you such worry had I any choice.”

“I just can’t believe you’re alive,” he said, and sat down a little shakily on the edge of the bed. He had a bowl of something, a grain porridge it looked like, with mashed roast hazelnuts. I thought to sit up, to reach for it, but I hadn’t the strength to do more than twitch one hand slightly. 

“Neither can I,” I said. 

He slid in behind me again, and helped me hold the bowl, helped me guide the food to my mouth. I was too weak to do any more, even to ask any questions, and he didn’t try to speak more with me. At some point I faded out, and slept for a while. 

When I woke again he was in the bed with me, nestled against my back, an arm around my body. I was used to sleeping so close with other soldiers, but it was a very long time indeed since I had slept in the arms of someone I desired. If only I were not so close to death, my body would probably have reacted embarrassingly.

I had thought he might fancy me as a lover; it had seemed clear enough when I had left that he was considering it. It may have been more attractive to him as an unattainable thing than it was now that I was here. I would have to tread carefully. If he refused me, I had nowhere to go. And I owed him a terrible debt; repaying it would be easier if he loved me, harder if he wanted to take it out of me in hard labor. 

But, I thought as I drifted back into sleep, here I was, in his bed, and not dead, and that alone was a better offer than I’d had in a very long time. 

 

Next awakening was early morning, as he woke and stretched beside me. I yawned, and turned over onto my back. It was still dark, the long dark of the winter night this far north, but outside the few overwintering birds were waking. “Carolus,” I murmured. I felt like myself, for the first time in a long time, felt like I might be able to sit up and actually face the day, felt like my body belonged to me, to an extent it hadn’t since a relative peace that seemed a lifetime ago. 

“You remember, do you,” he said, but he sounded amused. “Last time we had a conversation like this you called me mama.”

I laughed. “I don’t remember that,” I said, though I could dimly recollect an absence of memory wherein I might have done something like that. “I’m sorry, you don’t look a bit like her, but my powers of observation were most likely not at their highest.”

“That they weren’t,” he said. He propped himself up on his elbow to look down at me, his generous mouth curving with amusement. “I really can’t believe you’re alive.”

“I really can’t either,” I said, and we both laughed, and I thought, _this is the most exquisitely beautiful creature I’ve ever been in such close proximity to_. 

Something in my face must have changed, because he regarded me somberly. “What,” he said finally, “what… what will you do, now?”

I reached out carefully, my hand unsteady, and ran my fingers along his jaw, cradling it in the palm of my hand. “I owe you,” I said softly, “not only one life-debt, but two, on my own account, for you’ve saved me twice. Plus, two for my men who you kept alive as long as you did. And then, one more for almost getting you killed. It is more than I can repay in one lifetime alone, and I have nothing to offer you but myself.”

He leaned his cheek into my hand, his mouth curving into an enchantingly slow, amused smile. “Five, by your accounting,” he said, “and five is your name,” for such was the meaning of Quintus, of course. “Is that a coincidence, do you suppose?”

“Unless it is some aspect of your witchcraft,” I said teasingly, and ran my thumb along his lower lip to show I was teasing. 

He shook his head at me, and rolled his eyes a little. “My witchcraft is not dedicated to such trite puns,” he said. But his expression changed, and became more somber. “You should know,” he went on, casting his eyes down until his eyelashes shadowed his cheek, “I wasn’t accused of witchcraft for no reason at all.”

“I hadn’t imagined so,” I said. “Etain wasn’t hunting us for no reason at all either. One of my men killed Gorlacon’s son.”

Carolus looked pained. “Ah,” he said. “I didn’t do anything that drastic. But I was cast out for good reason.”

“It matters little to me,” I said. “I am in no position to judge you, myself, and as for those who cast you out— well, you know quite well that I have had some strong differences of opinion with them in the recent past, and for quite some time before that, so I am unlikely to second any judgement of theirs.”

He smiled slowly, uncertainly. “I don’t know about that,” he said. He truly must think that whatever made them think him a witch would upset me as well. 

“And there’s the small matter that I’m a fugitive myself,” I added. 

At that he sat up, which alarmed me a little until I saw that he was smiling. “You’d better tell that story,” he said. “I’ll go and get started on breakfast, and you tell me how you killed Etain and how it came about that you are now fugitive from Rome.” 

He climbed out of the bed, stuck his feet into a pair of fur boots waiting on the floor, and shuffled across the room, yawning. He was wearing only a shirt like the one I had on, near enough to be its twin, and it struck me that the shirt I was wearing was probably his as well. We were nothing like the same size— he was half a head shorter than me at least, though his shoulders were broad for his height. But the shirts were both boxy, loose, and his hung past his knees. On me, it fell a bit above the knees, but not enough to matter.

He stirred the fire up and built it back up from embers, turning it over. “Where shall I begin the story?” I asked. “I do not know how much I told you when last we were here. Did I explain how we came to be fleeing for our lives?”

“Not really,” he said. 

I pushed myself up into a half-sitting position, rearranging the blankets to be more comfortable, and thought about where to begin. “I was a centurion, in the Twentieth Valeria Victrix Legion,” I said. “I was second-in-command at the Pinnata Castra— Inchtuthil— garrison. We were under-strength, waiting for a new legion to take over the fort; most of the Twentieth is down in Deva Victrix by now, but we were a vexillation detached to man the fortress. We were ambushed at night and the fortress was overrun. Everyone was killed, but when they overcame and disarmed me I swore at them in their own tongue and they decided to take me to interrogate me. They brought me before Gorlacon and tried to get me to tell them Agricola’s plans for the frontier, but I would not speak, so they threw me in a shed for the night.”

“Gorlacon,” Carolus said, and screwed up his face in distaste. 

“Oh,” I said, “aye. The shed had weak walls, so I pushed my way through one of them and took off running. I made it a fair distance, some hours, but my hands were bound and I could not get them untied. I dared not stop long enough, but ran and ran. They pursued, of course, and on horseback, so they caught up to me by mid-day. I ran until I collapsed, but as they came to kill me, we encountered the advance party of a Roman legion, who killed them and rescued me.”

“You have a remarkable way of surviving these things,” Carolus said, appreciative.

“Oh,” I said, “it gets better. So they take me to their general. It is the Ninth Hispania Legion, out of York, which at the moment has a strength of about three thousand men, since there are several detachments of their numbers serving as vexillations overseas. They’ve been sent by Agricola to make a decisive end to the Pictish threat.” 

Carolus laughed. “Three thousand,” he said. 

I quirked an eyebrow. “It seemed like plenty, to them. They had sort of planned on meeting up with the men of my garrison, though, not knowing it had been destroyed. So that was kind of a rude surprise to them.” 

“I imagine,” he said. He had crude metal tongs, and he fished around in the rebuilt fire with them to pull out a large round stone, which he then dropped into a leather bucket. It hit the water with a hiss and quiet crack, then was silent. He peered down into the bucket, frowned, and went back to fishing through the fire with the tongs. 

“They untied my hands and cleaned me up and found new clothes for me, a new sword, even a horse, and I went with them. They had a scout, and showed her to me, said she had found me and was the reason I was alive. It was Etain, of course, and the general seemed a bit skeptical but said the governor had been most taken with her and insisted she was the key to our successful campaign.”

“Oh, fucking wonderful,” Carolus said, using the Pictish obscenity, and I laughed. It was the first Pictish word I’d learned.

“Yes,” I agreed, “fucking wonderful.” He found another stone and dropped it into the bucket. I had no idea what he was doing. Heating water? The hot stones would probably do the job, if you had a pot that couldn’t withstand direct heat. But he did have a good iron cooking pot; the iron was so good I could practically taste it from here. Why not use it? 

“Naturally, Etain led us straight into an ambush. They rolled giant balls of— burning pitch, I suppose? I couldn’t get a good look at them, really— to break our shield-walls and scramble our lines, then charged us with overwhelming numbers. I couldn’t tell you, in the fog and the mist and the fire and the confusion, how many of them there were, but if we outnumbered them, it wasn’t by much.” 

Carolus clicked his tongue and shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve never seen three thousand men all in one place,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine.”

“There were only a handful of survivors,” I went on. “I was yanked off my horse and thrown into a ditch, dazed but not much hurt. Before I could get myself out— where I probably would have been killed, confused as I was— a dead man fell down into the ditch on top of me, and another, and I lost consciousness for a little while. By the time I came to, I was buried in the dead and dying, and the fight was over.”

“So that’s three times you narrowly and miraculously escaped death,” he said. 

I shrugged. “In the span of this story, yes, I suppose,” I said. “I tried to claw my way out and a couple of other survivors found me and helped me out. Most of us were only lightly wounded; anyone seriously hurt died on that field. Three thousand men.” I had to stop then, and think about it. I hadn’t had the time to really sit in contemplation. The Ninth was gone, now, its eagle fallen, beyond recapture. The detached vexillationes would be absorbed into other legions, would take new affiliations. And none would ever know what had happened to them.

“That is an awful lot of death,” he said. “Even to a necromancer like me.”

I laughed, remembering how he’d had the Romans of the nearby garrison believing that his trade. “Yes,” I said, “and the thing is, they were good men. The Ninth was a good legion, with a long history, with a good general. Their symbol was a bull, sacred to Mithras.”

“Are you very religious?” he asked, a little skeptical.

“Me?” I stared at him. “How could I be? Believe that the gods intercede in men’s lives? Not after what I’ve seen.” I shook my head. “No.” 

He found one last rock, dropped it into the bucket, then stirred the bucket with an air of satisfaction. It was steaming gently now, in the cool air of the room, and I could smell porridge or oatmeal of some kind. he got out two of his wooden bowls and ladled porridge into them, and came to sit on the edge of the bed. I made room for him, looking up at him in a kind of worshipful awe. This wasn’t like me, but he was— he was beautiful, there was no other way of putting it, and something about him, the feel of his presence, called to me, drew me to him. 

I remembered it, then. “On my way here,” I said. “Just now. Er, five days ago. I— I felt you, before I could see you. It was the strangest thing.”

I looked up at him, and he looked stricken, lips parted and eyes searingly blue. “Felt,” he said, then bit off whatever he’d meant to say. 

“I don’t know how else to describe it,” I said. “I— I can feel you, even now— not just the warmth of your body, where you’re touching me, but somewhere—“ I raised a hand and held it next to my head, gesturing. “You must think I’m completely mad.”

“No,” he said, looking down at me almost sadly, “no. I don’t. Not at all.” He seemed to collect himself, blinked, and waved a hand with a spoon in it. “Go on with your story. We can talk about feelings later.”

I regarded him blankly a moment, but it seemed the matter was closed. I bought some time to collect myself by beginning to eat. “Oh,” I said, “this is good,” and for a few minutes I was aware of almost nothing except stuffing food into my face. 

He laughed. “Would you like more?” he asked. 

“Is there more?” I answered, unable not to perk up like a begging dog. 

“Yes,” he said. “I had expected you would be hungry.” He took the bowl and went to refill it. He’d hardly touched his, I noticed. 

“Where was I?” I asked. “The legion annihilated?”

“Yes,” Carolus said, “about there.”

“The thing is, the general wasn’t killed, he’d been captured. One of the survivors had seen them take him. And I knew, then, instantly, I knew they’d brought him before Gorlacon. And I knew where that was, in relation to where we were. I knew where the village was.” 

“You knew,” Carolus said, disbelieving. He handed me the bowl.

“I have a very good sense of direction,” I said. “I always know north from south. It’s like I can feel it pulling me. Even when I’m asleep, I know which way is north. So the whole time I was running from them, even headlong and desperate, I knew just where I was.”

“Really,” Carolus said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. 

I nodded, then looked down into the bowl. “I, er, I don’t usually tell people that,” I admitted. I wasn’t going to tell him the rest of it. 

“That’s the sort of thing that would get you accused of witchcraft,” Carolus agreed quietly. 

I sat up a little straighter. “You can do that too?” I asked. Never in my whole life had I ever heard of anyone who had any kind of ability like mine— but then, I wouldn’t have, because if they kept it secret like I did, we’d never know about one another. Was that— was that why I could feel him, so strongly? 

He half-smiled. “No,” he said. 

I blinked at him, then slumped back down in— oh, it was disappointment. Was he mocking me? I curled into myself a little, inwardly. “Oh,” I said. Why would— he had to be mocking me. I didn’t understand. I took a few bites to give myself a moment to recover from the strange hurt. I wasn’t normally so vulnerable to the opinions of others but, then, I normally didn’t tell anyone about that part of myself.

“There are other things I can do,” Carolus said, very quietly. “But I need you to finish your story first. I can’t— I’m not ready to talk about them, yet.”

I considered that, eating more of the porridge. Perhaps he hadn’t been mocking me, then. I uncurled a bit, cautiously. “All right,” I said. “So I led them— there were seven of us, all common soldiers except one cook, and me— to Gorlacon’s village. And sure enough, there was the general. He was chained to a rock, and beaten up, but not badly hurt. We crept in, slew the guards, and tried to free him. But we couldn’t pry him out of the chains. None of us could, try as we might. And as we tried, a patrol of Picts came back— too many for us to fight, and they’d raise the alarm and have the whole village upon us if we did.”

“Pry,” Carolus said. “Iron is brittle. Couldn’t you break them?”

I stared at him. “I don’t know if they tried that,” I said. I had only come to him at the end. I’d been able to feel the iron, to taste it. Sometimes I could… it sounded mad to think that way, even in my head, but sometimes I could influence metal. But in the confusion and fear and urgency, I hadn’t tried. It demanded far more concentration than I could muster. 

“No matter,” Carolus said soothingly; my distress must have been visible. “It would have taken a deal of force, I imagine.”

“Yes,” I said absently. I shook myself, collecting my thoughts. “At any rate, Virilus ordered me to leave, ordered me to get the others back to safety, and in the end we had to leave him. At the last second, we dashed for cover. I did not know this, but one of the men, Thax, ducked into a house, and the only person in it was Gorlacon’s son, who was about ten or eleven I think. Gorlacon had him standing there while he was interrogating me, forced him to watch them cutting me.”

“Such would be his way,” Carolus murmured. “Know your enemy.”

I nodded. “That was what he said to the boy. Well, Thax killed him. So we fled, and escaped undetected, but of course the next morning his death was discovered, and Gorlacon sent Etain and nine others after us, to pursue us unto even their own deaths.”

“I saw that they had painted their faces,” Carolus said. “I knew then that it was serious. This was no idle sport.”

“No,” I said. I shook my head. “No.” Had Thax not done that… but had I mustered the strength to influence the chains, perhaps I could have broken them. Had I even thought to smash them. But I hadn’t. And he’d done what he’d done. It didn’t bear considering. 

“So they hunted you,” Carolus said. 

I nodded. “I thought they would look for us to the south,” I said, “so I took us north, planning to then veer west before doubling back south.” I shook my head. “I don’t think it mattered, Etain couldn’t have taken more than a few hours to pick up our trail.”

“It gave you a few hours, though,” Carolus said kindly. “It’s no good to look back and think on what you could have done differently. Who knows— it might have been a worse disaster. What if you’d saved the general but he’d been in poor enough condition to slow you down, so that you all were caught almost immediately? Or what if you’d saved him and he’d been all right, but had taken over leadership of your little band, and led you some other way that proved wrong?”

I felt it strongly, then— Carolus felt like light, and warmth, a wholesome and encompassing sort of pure goodness that warmed me from the inside out. “I can feel you,” I murmured. I shook my head wonderingly. “That’s you.” I put my emptied bowl aside and put my hand flat against his chest. The warmth outright tingled as it ran through me. “I know that’s you.”

“This is me,” Carolus said, amused, putting his hand around my wrist, pressing my hand harder against his chest. “Of course you can feel me.”

“I feel you… inside,” I said. “In— in my heart. It’s— you think I’m mad.” I pulled away.

“No,” he said. “You’re not mad, Quintus.” He took my hand between his and held it. “You’re— gods, finish your story, Quintus.”

I nodded slowly. His hands were so warm, holding mine. “I, most of the rest of the story you know, or can guess,” I said. “They hunted us, killed us one or two at a time— at one point they cornered us and I made everyone jump into a river, and one was killed and two were swept away. Including Thax, the only one deserving of Etain’s wrath.” I made a face, thinking of how I’d had to kill him. “Thax and Macros. Macros was a good runner, the fastest of us. Thax said, later, that wolves got him, but if wolves were hunting them, I don’t see how they’d have caught the faster of the two of them without the slower one getting involved somehow.”

“I see your point,” Carolus said. 

I shook my head. “Tarak they shot, Leonidas we found decapitated, then they shot Bothos and left him to bleed. Then we found you. I don’t think we’d have made it very much farther than that, except that we stumbled across you.”

Carolus smiled. “Anything to thwart Etain is sweet to me,” he said. “What of the frontier garrison, then?”

I shook my head. “Emptied,” I said. “Agricola pulled back all the troops from the frontier when the Ninth disappeared, back to a new line drawn by the new emperor Hadrian, another day or two to the south.”

“Ah,” Carolus said, eyebrows drawing together. “Truly?”

“Truly,” I said. “The garrison was empty when we arrived. Fires were still smoldering, so they couldn’t have left more than a day or so beforehand. The very worst of luck, for us.”

“That is,” Carolus said. “Ugh! That I told you to go there— I am sorry.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said. I shook my head. “But we had scarce arrived when Etain caught up to us. There was nowhere to run, not anymore. So we decided to make a stand, there in the palisade.”

“A stand,” Carolus said. “Three of you against— I think there were seven of them?”

“Seven,” I confirmed. “We found two bows, and a half-quiver of arrows, a spear, a knife or two. So we shot two of them down before they reached the garrison. Four against three wasn’t such bad odds. But Brick was shot. He killed the archer, I know that, but then Etain got him with a spear— I saw it happen, there was nothing I could do. I killed two of them, then Etain was upon me. It blurs, in my memory, but it ended up with Bothos getting involved, she nearly killed him, he got away from her, then she came after me and I managed to get a knife up under her ribs just as she swung into me. Bothos killed the last Pict while she was dying, and then it was just the two of us. Brick was dead by then. At least it was clean.”

“I am sorry for his dying,” Carolus said. 

I shook my head. “Better than Bothos’s end.” 

Carolus looked concerned. “Oh no,” he said, dismayed. 

I shook my head again. “We took two of the Pictish horses,” I said. “With them, our progress was faster. That night we encountered Thax. I took him with me on my horse, as I weigh a good bit less than Bothos did.”

“That you do,” Carolus said, but I couldn’t tell if his glance at my waist was admiring or not. 

“We came to the new frontier soon,” I went on. “Bothos saw the wall and sped his horse towards it, waving his arms— he was so excited, shouting to them, jubilant at surviving. I shouted to him to stop, to wait, meaning to approach more cautiously— but just then, Thax drew his knife on me. I think he meant to kill me. He wanted to know if I would turn him in for being the one who had murdered Gorlacon’s son. He also hadn’t missed my reaction at finding out the faster of the two of them had fallen to the wolves.”

“He must have killed Macros,” Carolus said. “What did you do?”

“I spurred the horse, so we fell off,” I said. I had also influenced the knife, pushing it away from me, and used the horse’s motion as cover for it. But I wasn’t going to admit that. Not out loud. “We struggled briefly, I finally killed him— it was the only way to keep him from killing me, I knew that. And I got up then, just in time to see the guards at the gate shoot Bothos, assuming he was a mad Pictish raider.”

“No,” Carolus said, face twisting with grief.

“Yes,” I said. “He died immediately.” 

“No,” Carolus said again, quieter. We sat in silence a moment. “You didn’t turn around then,” Carolus said. “That wasn’t enough to make you turn tail.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Even having failed in the last duty Virilus had assigned me— bringing not a single one of his men home— I went on to the gate, and I made my report to the governor.”

“What then?” Carolus asked. 

I shook my head, gathered myself. This was the hardest part. “He listened gravely, told me I was a hero, sat me down with food and wine, and then had his men set upon me to kill me. They didn’t want the tale getting out— it would only encourage other tribes to fight them, to hear of the Picts’ success against the Ninth.”

“They tried to _kill_ you,” Carolus said, mouth parting in shock. 

“That was how I was injured,” I said. “One of them stabbed me in the leg as we fought. I killed them, and struck the governor’s daughter— she was the one who had ordered the attack, but I know her father had told her to do it.”

“Vile,” Carolus said. “That’s just— that’s vile.”

“I thought so,” I said. “So I left the way I’d come, on a Pictish horse, and said fuck you to Rome, fuck you to everything else I’d ever believed. And came back to you, because you’re the only thing I still believe in.”

Carolus stared at me, and I could feel him so clearly, could feel the cautious blossoming of hope in his breast, could feel him unfolding to me. It felt like a sunrise, pure and clear, warmth stealing across a great void of cold. “Can you feel that?” he whispered.

“I can,” I said. “I— you’re in my _heart_ , Carolus. I can _feel_ you. You feel like the sun in winter.”

He leaned forward a little, letting go of my hand to put his hands on my shoulders and pull me in, putting his mouth on my mouth. I kissed him eagerly, wanting more of that warmth, more of this feeling of rightness, of wholeness. I hadn’t been with another man, as an adult; it was common enough for youths to associate with older men, mentor figures, when they first took arms, and so I had done. And it was common enough among soldiers to exchange sexual touches, but there was nothing particularly romantic about that sort of thing, and I had never kissed any of the soldiers I’d fondled like that. 

No, this was something entirely new, driven as it was by this new thing I did not understand. “You’re,” he said breathlessly, hands framing my face, “you’re like me, then.”

“I thought I was the only one,” I said, staring up at him. We had moved to lying down, somehow, tangled around one another in the narrow bed, and he was mostly on top of me. “I thought I was alone.”

“No,” he said, a smile breaking across his face like the sun sliding above the horizon in the morning, preceded by a blush and then blinding in its brightness. I had to kiss him, for that, for being so beautiful. “Not alone,” he murmured. “And I— not alone anymore— Quintus,” and he opened to me and I could feel what he felt, could feel his aching loneliness and fear, for so long. He’d always been able to hear other people’s feelings, from the time he was small, but nobody had ever really noticed until a few years ago. He had been studying with the village healer, had been accepted in society, had been liked and had belonged, until he had overheard the village headman thinking about the deal he and Gorlacon had made to goad some of the rash local youth into attacking the Roman garrison, so that they would be killed for it and public sentiment would rise up in frenzy against the Romans, giving more recruits to Gorlacon’s army and ending the relative local peace that had gone on too long. 

Carolus had warned the youths of this, had used his ability to influence thoughts to deter them from the attack. The headman and Gorlacon had found out, and that had led to the accusation of witchcraft. Carolus had been cast out, then, ritually scarred and beaten and turned out into the wild; some of his former friends had smuggled things out to him to help him survive, but he knew he could never acknowledge them, could never seek them out, or they’d be targeted too and probably killed. It was only the Pictish superstition that killing a witch brought down a curse that had spared Carolus’s life. 

“Not alone anymore,” I said, and kissed him. 


End file.
